"I will not delay you a moment," said Rosalind. "Shall I ask Fanny to go with us?"
"Why no," replied Miss Cartwright; "I think you had better not;--the chances are ten to one against her finding it convenient. You know she is so fond of solitary study----"
"I believe you are right," said Rosalind; and the young ladies parted, to meet again a few minutes after, with bonnets and parasols, at the hall-door.
"And which way are we to go to find this welcome shade?" said Rosalind, holding her parasol low down to shelter her pretty face. "The sun is almost intolerable."
"This way," said Henrietta, turning aside from the drive in a direction which soon brought them to a thickly-planted ride that surrounded the Park. "We shall find it delightful here."
It was an hour which, in the month of July, few ladies would choose for walking; but Miss Torrington politely exerted herself to converse, though she secretly longed to be lying silent and alone on the sofa in her own dressing-room, with no greater exertion than was necessary for the perusal of--
Henrietta, however, only answered her dryly and shortly, and presently said,
"I should be really very much obliged to you, Miss Torrington, if you would not speak to me any more. Just listen to the blackbirds, will you?--depend upon it we can neither of us express ourselves one half so well as they do."
Rosalind willingly submitted to this request; and the young ladies walked onward, producing no other sound than the occasional brushing of their dresses against the underwood, which at every step became thicker, rendering the path almost too narrow for two to walk abreast.
"Now, let us just turn down through this little opening," said Henrietta in a whisper; "and pray do not speak to me."
Rosalind, who began to believe that she must have some meaning for her strange manner of proceeding, followed her in perfect silence; and they had not gone far into the intricacies of the tangled copse, before she heard the sound of a human voice at no great distance from her. Henrietta, who was in advance, turned round and laid her finger on her lips. The caution was not needed: Rosalind had already recognised the tones of Mr. Cartwright, and a few more silent steps brought them to a spot thickly surrounded on all sides, but from whence they could look out upon a small and beautiful opening, in the centre of which a majestic lime-tree stretched its arms in all directions over the soft green turf.